Call for Papers
18 Jun 2025Transcendental Rhetoric in the Times of Rise of GenAI
Roundtable Session for NeMLA’s 57th Convention in Pittsburgh, March 5-8, 2026
This panel aims to explore how the transcendentalist rhetoric of public advocacy and elevation of self can be adapted in the teaching of writing and literature in the times of the rise of GenAI that may erase the agency of its users and partake in ethically compromised algorithms and infrastructures.
In the words of Nathan Crick, transcendentalism is a “rhetorical genre of public advocacy” and “a way of crossing a divide or reconciling a contradiction through a radical act of imagination whereby people are able to see and judge themselves from the perspectives of some distant and different ‘beyond’ (9). How can the transcendentalist philosophy of learning inform our 21st-century pedagogy of higher education, when GenAI is rising? GenAI’s one challenge in higher education, especially in teaching writing and interpreting literature, is its increasingly seamless integration into digital devices, which has posed a threat of erasing learners’ self or individual voice and perpetuating algorithmic bias. Is there any value in the re-generation or revival of transcendentalist ethos in our pedagogy? What aspects of transcendentalist ideas (mystic, spiritualist, abolitionist, radical, humanist, pastoral, individualistic, utopian, etc.) can be adapted to humanely channelize the challenges and opportunities of the technological conundrum of GenAI in our teaching of writing and literature?
Please submit your 200-300-word abstract and a brief bio to this NeMLA portal: https://cfplist.com/nemla/Home/S/21770
Deadline for submissions: September 30, 2025
Contact: Sarbagya Kafle, University of Louisiana at Lafayette (sarbagya.kafle1@louisiana.edu)